Tim Trainor spends every waking moment finding out what's all the gay rage in Perth right now. Events, culture and random bits and pieces from Perth, Australia.
More: facebook | twitter | Tim in WAX Magazine
Spread the love: 
alternative nights animals bars bears censorship connections converting drag entertainment events fashion festivals freedom of speech gay cinema gay community gay marriage gay news gay rights hags health homecoming indie internet local artists media music nightlife northbridge nudity perth police politics pride religion retro reviews sex shopping straight scene stupid the court the scene violence wax magazine youtube
Perth gay community:
Perth services:
Perth web destinations:
Plugs:
gay rage hosting is powered by COVE. Check them out for professional web hosting solutions.
Viewing posts tagged ‘censorship’
May 17
гомосексуалиста времени
I thought I would do a Eurovision post because I know of a lot of Eurovision parties happening around Perth tonight. The final was very entertaining: while the musical performances were less camp than last year, I was still glued to my set. I can’t even imagine the amount of money Russia pumped into production - the visual styling and stage design blew my mind.
Unfortunately there’s saddening news: Gay rights protesters who arranged a rally to coincide with the media attention that Eurovision brings were quickly arrested and whisked away by riot police. In fact, they arranged 1000 riot police to break up demonstration. In the mean time an anti-gay protest elsewhere in the city was given a permit to go ahead (although some of these protesters were arrested as well). Stuck in the middle Eurovision had to ignore the entire thing was happening.
But back to the competition: my favourite performances were Greece (super, super gay), Russia (very powerful), Armenia (awesome visuals), Sweden (super freaky opera singer) and Germany (for some reason they were represented by an American gay guy and Dita Von Teese! What!). Not to be forgetting Slovenia putting up a protest during the result announcements! Pure gold.
And my absolute favourite part… the host - what a hottie! If there are any guys in Perth who look like Ivan Urgant please contact me asap. Ahh Ivan… one day you will be mine!
May 1
Why bar owners don’t work in public relations
I don’t actually spend every moment of my life whinging about The Court. I only do it every second day, or when I’m feeling cranky, or feeling bored. Physically it’s a great venue, and yes it has introduced some good new elements to Perth’s gay bar scene (mainly food related). Although I feel it still hasn’t reached full potential yet you could definitely go a lot worse on a Saturday night - Mustang Bar anyone?
What I frequently don’t agree with though is the venue management’s attitude towards its patrons. I’ve discussed this previously, but apparently we’re not even allowed to talk about it anymore: Bree Maddox (owner of The Court) recently went on a censorship spree and threatened the owners of two Court related Facebook groups, pushing the owners to take the groups down.
One of these groups was set up to discuss the security company employed by The Court, and included valid conversation on how patrons had been treated (according to the group a few incidents have occurred recently). When this Facebook group first started Bree Maddox even contributed, stating she would to look into the situation and enact changes as required. A few weeks later though she’s suddenly changed her mind and is demanding the group be deleted otherwise “further action” will be taken… huh?
The group owner told me:
She [Bree Maddox] asked me to take it down or it would be reported and removed anyway. So after a fairly intense discussion with her I swallowed my pride and removed it myself. They weren’t so much legal threats, but it was implied that further action would be taken if the group wasn’t deleted.
It doesn’t take a degree in Public Relations (which I do have, by the way) to know that if your customers are raising legitimate complaints, you don’t try to censor them. If you attempt to silence people they talk anyway. Word spreads and then some loudmouth puts it on his blog and then even more people know. Scaring your customers with implied threats of legal action or a banning from your venue is a big no no. A discussion group sharing complaints about a product or service is not defamation.
So my question to Bree Maddox is; why are we not allowed to talk about ways to improve The Court? Why are you threatening people who point out areas that need attention to make the venue better?
As a side note, can you also explain why you registered the domain name perthmardigras.com? I’m a tad confused… you didn’t want anything to do with the 2008 Pride Parade, but at the same time you registered a website for your own Perth Mardi Gras?… Just sayin!
Obviously this is quite a controversial topic for little ol’ Perth, and I would like to add a disclaimer that this post is by no means an attack on staff who work at The Court (I know you guys are a pretty tight knit bunch), or any specific security guard. Bree if you would like to respond - please do. I will gladly post your reply here.
Currently the Court related Facebook group I started ages ago has not received any requests to close down. Funny that.
April 15
Absurd news bites…
… from the last few days. Armies of homos on twitter went crazy over Amazon removing the sales rankings of gay literature items on their website. Amazon’s public relations department were busy taking sedatives and could only respond with “it’s a glitch” and mumbled something about their system for protecting children from inappropriate content, which made everyone even angrier.
This all happened over the weekend, and most sales rankings have since been restored. A hacker has also come forward to claim responsibility. I’m too busy focusing on what Amazon Xanax PR have called the incident: “embarrassing and ham-fisted”. Apparently ‘ham-fisted’ is a common American term for clumsy. But dammit, now I can’t stop thinking about what ham-fisting would involve.
In Poland a conservative politician criticised his local zoo for importing a gay elephant. Apparently this is news.
“We were supposed to have a herd, but as Ninio prefers male friends over females how will he produce offspring?” said Grzes, who is from the right-wing opposition Law and Justice party.
Well Grzes, you just need to find a lesbian elephant to act as the surrogate. Disclaimer: I did steal that joke from another website.
The head of the Poznan zoo said 10-year-old Ninio may be too young to decide whether he prefers males or females as elephants only reach sexual maturity at 14.
Poor elephant, only 10 years old and already being forced into a gender role.
Within Australia that lipstick lesbian kinda indie if you squint your eyes hard enough MTV VJ Ruby Rose is defending accusations she took a ham-fisting from a straight guy. Her convincing defense on twitter was that hooking up with a guy was just as likely as…
“an alien snowboarding in Iraq with a poodle”
ACTUAL QUOTE.
More articles:
|
it's all gay rage in perth right now is a 